Choreography: George Balanchine
Music: Vittorio Rieti (after themes of Vincenzo Bellini)
Scenario: Vittorio Rieti
Costumes: Andre LeVasseur
The curtain goes up on a masked ball in progress. Society's glitterati,
beautifully turned out, are gathered in a celebration of self-satisfaction.
The elegant Polonaise delights the audience and we settle back in charmed
contentment. We anticipate the pleasure of the party.
Thus George Balanchine introduced his 1946 ballet, La Sonnambula, a treasured,
atypical work "with-plot" by a choreographer who usually favored
the abstract above the literal. The plot is briefly this: The Poet
appears at the party described, and is introduced, with notable reluctance,
by the Baron to his mistress, the Coquette. The party whirls on,
and the Baron presents a trio of diverting "entertainments"
which his guests politely applaud. The guests leave the garden.
The Coquette entraps the Poet in a seductive pas de deux, but the Baron
reclaims her attention and she abandons the Poet. His brief reverie
is interrupted by the ethereal Sleepwalker and he is spellbound.
In a furious rush of passions, the story speeds to a tragic climax.
The story, as given, is surely the stiff of melodrama, fully weighted with
macabre 19th century Romanticism. That they appeal endures, affirms
once again Balanchine's extraordinary sense of the theatrical and his
unrivalled capacity for choreographic invention. The dancers describe
with the set of their heads, the angle of their wrists, and world of timeless
arrogance. The ballet's language, its postures, are those of intrigue
of spying, of watched and watchers. Creatures of bored affluence
the Baron, the Coquette, the Guests traffic in the random malice of rumor.
They are practitioners of lago's art and the consequences are comparable.
The Poet, the Sleepwalker, and the Entertainers are innocent and apart
from the conspiracy which swirls around them, but the dancers devised
for them are the ballet's centerpiece and strength. The extraordinarily
moving and beautiful duet of the Poet and the Sleepwalker, and the acrobatic
humor of the Divertissements are the pieces around which the dramatic
web is woven.
The music and the scenario for La Sonnambula, also known at various times
as The Night Shadow, Night Shadows, La Sonnambule, are creations of Vittorio
Rieti, a composer who was both friend and collaborator to Balanchine.
The music is based on themes from Bellini's operas, including La Sonnambula, I Puritani, Norma, and I Capuletti ed i Montecchi, but the ballet uses
only the subject matter and not the story from La Sonnambula. It
was first performed on February 27, 1946, by the Ballet Russe de Monte
Carlo, in New York City, was presented by various companies in that form
and was restaged in 1960 by John Taras for the New York City Ballet.
Mr. Taras, who appeared as the Baron in that production, has set this
work for the State Ballet of Missouri.
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